Road Trip

After lots of debate about where to go for a spring trip, we settled on a road trip to visit Jake's sister Anna in Madison. We had not yet gone to visit her and as she's ending her junior year, we didn't want to miss the opportunity.

Jake took the day off Friday so we could make it a long weekend. We left our house mid-morning hoping to stop part-way in Winona for lunch with Uncle Sam. As we were driving toward the freeway Addy started making her patented grunting noises so we stopped a few minutes into the drive for an emergency diaper change. Shortly after that, the light rain we were driving in turned to golf-ball sized snowflakes. It was not the start we were hoping for, but we survived both surprises and arrived in Winona safe, happy, and ready for the stop.

After a tour of his house and some yummy sandwiches, we were back on the road in time for naps and hopeful we'd make it all the way to Madison without incident. Unfortunately we encountered a pretty bad accident, which slowed us down, and neither kid slept as long as we hoped so we ended up making an unplanned stop at a rest area to feed Addy, take a bathroom break and stretch our legs a bit.

Eventually we made it to Madison, got settled at our hotel, and met up with Anna. She and her sweet roommates showed us their apartment and then we walked to get some dinner.

Saturday was reserved for a trip to the Henry Vilas zoo. We were thrilled to wake up to gorgeous weather. Anna and her boyfriend PJ joined us to check out all the animals, enjoy the sunshine, and eat lunch at the nearby park. It was a great morning!

After naps we took advantage of hotel living and tested out the pool. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed relaxing and playing with Auntie Anna. (In the video, Dax is acting like the otters he saw bouncing off the walls at the zoo.)

We decided to do dinner in so we picked up some Papa Murphy's pizzas and headed back to Anna's apartment. We got to meet another of her roommates (she seems to live with some great girls!) and Dax was happy to have some more down time playing. I think his favorite part was the Bucky Badger mural in the entryway - and acting like all the different Buckys.

Sunday was going to be another travel day, but we planned to leave so Dax and Addy would nap on the first chunk of the drive. We spent the morning packing up and lounging at the hotel. Then we met Anna again to walk around and get some lunch on our way out. My friend Sarah also met us near campus and it was awesome to see her (we almost missed each other when she got a flat tire on her way to meeting us - thank goodness for AAA!).

Though Dax only slept for about a half hour, he was an amazing car traveler. We had a full bag of stuff to entertain him, which he used, but he also spent a lot of time just looking out the window and listening to music. Addy slept most of the drive and happily played with toys when she was awake. We arrived in Eau Claire (our planned stop for this leg of the trip) a bit later than we hoped due to some serious road construction, which stopped traffic completely for several miles, but enjoyed walking around Jake's old campus. It has changed quite a bit and was fun to check it out, especially on another beautiful day.

The final leg of our road trip was uneventful. We are so thankful to have been able to spend the time with both Sam and Anna (and PJ!), feel incredibly blessed to have such amazing kids who traveled well, and feel lucky to have had such a fun weekend away.